


Basil & Rosemary

by Chairman



Category: Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:59:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern genderbent adaptation of The Picture of Dorian, focusing on the painter Basil and her growing obsession with her subject.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basil & Rosemary

Everything you ever need, you can find in a painting.

Humanity, grace, beauty, truth; look at the right painting long enough and you’ll find them hidden in the shadows and the movement, in the limbs of dancer and tree. I know; I’ve looked often, and more often than not what I see is paradise.

I love the people in paintings, how the light captured in oils and canvas betray a sense of humanity I have hardly ever seen in the humans who move. 

It’s strange, how my heart moves for neither man nor woman except when they’re compressed into a two-dimensional frame, holding daisies, perhaps, or an ermine, a small useless dog. They are so perfect, so unmarred by time, untouched by the cruelties of wind and weather. I look at them, some which capture their subjects with bitter honesty, and I say, “how beautiful.” Then I look around me, at the people wandering the halls of my school and the bus stops and the library; coffee in hand, scarves or hats slapped haphazardly on themselves with little regard for composition or character. They are alive, yes, but they lack motion, lack the sense of urgency and vitality that the paintings I love grasp with a wisdom far beyond the senses, something that I can only describe in vague outlines, in intuition rather than words.

I create as well as admire. It’s not as good as my loves, but I manage. Portraits are what I enjoy creating, and despite the many exasperated sighs my rather modernist art teacher gives at every composition, they do well enough in art shows, and many people admire them. Sometimes I wonder if it’s more because we hardly see anything like them nowadays, and it’s nostalgia, not talent, that draws people to my paintings.

“You were born into the wrong century, Basil,” Ms. Wotton continuously tells me. “If you wish to pursue a career in art, and I know you do, you must learn to adapt. If they want a portrait of a girl holding a parrot, for the price you’re going to be asking buyers would just go get something older.”

I just smile and tell her that’s not true, and I can draw in a more “modern style” if I want to. I just don’t.

I still watch people, though. Sure, they do not offer the same visual bliss as the paintings, but sometimes—occasionally—there is a glimpse at beauty underneath their mundane looks, like a secret door that sometimes appears on a wall, but then is gone when you blink. Even the ugliest of people sometimes shine, and when they do I draw them.

I know I keep talking about Beauty, but it’s not as simple as putting on fancy clothing and slapping a few flowers in the background. The moments of beauty I capture are also moments of truth—truth is beauty, after all. In those moments I see something raw, something that makes me feel a connection to a stranger, an acquaintance, which forces my pencil into a flurry as I capture their profile on page. There I keep them, perfect moments if not perfect people, locked inside carbon fibers, preserved far longer than their bodies. Of course, most of the sketches are incomplete; whenever I begin to capture them, they move, they change; time robs me of the moment, as time always does. 

I usually foray into this hobby during class, as teaching is wasted on the ignorant. I file away the useless words and concentrate on my classmates, on my next victim. They’re usually no David, no St. John, but I have to keep my skills sharp. I’ve found that I look more favorably on people whom I have drawn; I feel a deeper connection to them, even though I know they would find it disturbing. And honestly, quite a few of my classmates do look better on page than in real life.

I meet her on my way to class, sketchbooks clutched in my hand, my mind elsewhere.

And then I bump into her, and my sketchbook falls to the ground. And, fate be cruel and kind, it falls to an open page. The girl quietly apologizes and bends over to pick up the book. She looks up at me, and I find myself lost in the most captivating eyes I have ever seen, like two deep pools which entrap light in their depth.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and hands the sketchbook to me. Well, starts to, but then she catches a glimpse at the drawings. “Wow.”

“What?” I ask nervously. I usually don’t let anyone see my sketches; they are unfinished, snapshots, halfway to voyeurism and a source of social taboo.

“These are really, really good,” she says. 

“Um, yeah.” I’m bad at talking to people normally, but the rhyme and method of conversation have completely failed now that I am talking to her. Her, I don’t know her name, but she descends upon my line of sight like an angel, a painting come to life. For the first time, I believe that true beauty can be found on Earth. She is so self-contained, so complete, so perfect; I have often glanced at people who betray instances of beauty, but she is beauty; the glow never left her, she continues to remain untouched by the horrible realities of the living, to be life without being a part of it.

My heart begins to pound. I hear her speak to me, but the words are muffled, as if I am underwater.

“…I mean, how long have you been drawing?” 

I snap back to reality.

“Since I’ve held a crayon,” I say, and internally curse the idiocy of my response.

The girl is kind as well as beautiful, however, and smiles in turn. “That’s really cool. See you later then.”

And she is gone. I watch her as she leaves, her body swaying with her stride. I try to avoid looking at her curves, but my eyes fail at abstinence. I’m just studying her, I tell myself; it’s research for my paintings. 

Obviously, I’m lying.

I try to push the girl out of my head as I work on my set of paintings after school in Ms. Wotton’s room. She has stepped outside for a smoke, again, and I revel in the silence as I add more careful brushstrokes onto the last of the set. I wipe sweat from my forehead and dab gently at the hands. Squinting at the lighting, I mimic the pose, examining how the light dances on the joints. 

I didn’t hear her come in. Of course I didn’t; the perverted plot I will soon be entangled in commands it.

“So this is your inner sanctum.”

I start and turn, to face the girl from earlier. I try to say something, but the only noise that emits from my throat is a kind of strangled moan. She just smiles and walks in behind me.

“I thought you had to be with a teacher to stay in a room after school.”

“Ms. Wotton trusts me.”

“Wow, you’re even better with oils—that’s what you’re using, right?”

“Acrylic,” I correct, and blush. She’s looking at my work, something that I detest while working, and worst off, I am currently working on a set of nude portraits. Well, to be precise they’re studies of motion in the human body, but unfortunately I’m not able to explain that to her before she sees them.

“And your subject matter is…” Oh no, here comes the scorn. I brace myself for the scorn, the cruelty I have grown accustomed to as the default response. 

“…Interesting.”

“What?” 

“Yeah,” she squints at one of the finished ones. “I really like the colors here.”

“Really” I mumble. It’s a bad habit of mine, but I just can’t take compliments well at all, and here was a perfect girl looking at my art, and trying to understand them.

“Though I’m not sure what they mean.”

“It’s about motion in the human body,” I explain. “You know, life captured in a simple language, without words or any descriptions.”

“I’m not going to pretend to understand it,” she laughs. “But they’re very cool. Can I watch you paint?”

I blush even more. By the end of the day I wager my face is going to be a wall of red; funny thing about me, when I blush it doesn’t go away until the day after. “Um, sure?”

“Cool,” she says, pulling up a chair beside me. “I’m Doreen by the way.”

“Basil.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks, my mother picked it.”

We sit in silence for a while, Doreen watching me as I add finishing touches, and me trying to hide the fact that I was watching Doreen out of the corner of my eye. She really was beautiful, with a well formed, round face and full lips that expressed emotion in the strangest, most visceral manner. Looking at her, it’s like seeing a reflection of yourself, but not; maybe more like a sense of humanity, as if thousands of years of history and art and war reside in a single face. She has nice hands, too, delicate, shapely with round fingertips. I suddenly imagine myself kissing those hands, and I push that thought back into the furthest corner of my mind. No need to alienate out someone who might actually be interested in my work.

She leaves after an hour, promising to come back tomorrow. Well, I’m almost done with the paintings anyways…the added company might be welcome. Or, who am I kidding, I really want to hang out with her more. 

We spend a week together after school, me painting, Doreen talking. Although, mostly we just talk, since I am almost done with the set anyways. It’s strange, to have someone watch me as I work, and though it makes me uncomfortable it’s the kind of underlying panic that promises to go away, the kind that follows you when you try new things.

As the weeks ends, I come to the realization that I am slowly going insane. 

When I am with her, I feel at peace; I feel whole and loved and, I think for the first time, like a human being. Never have I known such a connection is possible with another person, and neither have I known the great deficit I have been suffering by shunning human contact. The years of loneliness, of ignorance of my own personal failure, flood my brain and I cannot breathe without her. 

I must paint her. It is imperative, a divine order for me to solidify our friendship, to hold her still for all eternity.

Imagine my surprise when she says yes.

As I walk home I almost feel like dancing. The sky looks effervescent and clear, thick fat clouds drifting like slow-moving mountains. I spread my arms and laugh, not caring who sees me, because right then I am the happiest girl in the world. I stare up into the infinity, and tell myself a truth I have been keeping hidden inside me for the past few weeks, a truth that has taken seed since moment I saw her, a small seed that has now grown into a great blooming rose.

I am in love with Doreen. 

I’ve never really thought about my sexuality because until then it hadn’t been something that mattered to me. But now, thinking about it, I think it makes sense that I am attracted to her. They have always been my preferred subject, and almost all the paintings I love have a beautiful woman as the premier subject matter. The revelation—if you can call it that—doesn’t really stir any strong emotions inside me. Sure, my heart is glowing and I can feel it pulsating within my chest, but that comes from being in love with the most beautiful and kind girl who dares to grace this world, who puts the women in oils to shame, not because I just discovered that I am homosexual. All I’m doing is putting a name to my feelings, neatly categorizing myself in a tiny little shelf. 

And it’s not a sexual desire that draws me to Doreen. My mind starts to break whenever I imagine myself doing anything severely intimate with her (though, granted, that happens when I imagine myself doing something intimate with anybody). It’s more of a desire to be near her, to bask in her radiance, to hold her company.

The specifics are not something I am overly concerned about though. Because tomorrow, I start my portrait of Doreen.

She enters the studio wearing the most stunning dress I have ever seen, a flowing light green that makes me think of summer, of light seen through an iridescent leaf. She has put up her hair in a loose bun on the top of her head, where dark curls tumble down onto the nape of her neck.

“I heard you like the Victorian style,” she says. “Do you want me to sit or stand?”

“Sit,” I say quickly. Last night I went through some potential compositions, and settled with a window scene, potentially with a vase of flowers. Luckily, the art room has a large store of fake flowers, of which I select a handful, mostly purple: rosemary, lilac and delphinium. 

I gesture to the window. “Do you want to sit near there? Like so—here, let me put this vase here…okay, adjust your dress a little bit. Um, do you think you can hold a sprig of Rosemary?”

She grips it. “Like this?”

“No, a little more gently. Let it rest in your hand. Here,” I grasp her hand and move her compliant fingers around the stem. Her hand is warm and soft, and I imagine mine lost in hers.

The first day, Friday, I just sketch the general outline of her onto the canvas. Without the pressures of class I finish in about two hours, and we both head home in opposite directions. I take the canvas and vase home with me, hoping to finish the background during the weekend.

I set the portrait up in my studio, which in reality is just a room in the basement of my mom’s house I have claimed by the sheer mass of my mess that’s in there. I have a similar one in dad’s house, but it’s not as messy, though granted, I don’t live much at dad’s house.

The painting emerges slowly but surely, layers and layers of color blending together to create a human being. Doreen is a great model; she is able to sit still very well and not get bored at all. We play music as I work now; mostly from Doreen’s mp3, so the songs are entirely new to me. I’m not sure I like Doreen’s music, but then again my taste in archaic vaudevillian songs appeal to a population of skeletons and me. 

I’d like to think we are close, but I know I am deluding myself. By painting her, I create a wall between us, a distance I am afraid to cross, that I cannot hope to cross. She always sits across the room, still as a statue and wreathed in purple flowers, as I add layers of greens and blues onto her. I want to walk with her hand in hand; I want to be in her embrace, to feel the folds of her green dress give way to the scent of rosemary on her hands.

“I’m thinking of calling this ‘Girl with Rosemary,’ what do you think?” I ask her one day when the form of a human being is starting to give way to an individual, to Doreen.

Sometimes, when I work on the painting, I catch myself chatting genially with it as I would with Doreen if she was there. Of course, what else should I expect except to lose my mind over her, the girl in green whose eyes steal light like two wells?

“You’re being rather quiet, you know,” she says to me one day.

I pause, squinting around me. Is it Doreen speaking, or is it the painting, the girl with rosemary decorating her scented hair?

“Basil?”

I concentrate on the oils, the colors mixing into gentle grays which will become the shadows on her thin curved neck.

“Basil, don’t you want to talk to me?”

Short, smooth brushstrokes, turning blank canvas into skin and giving the skin shadows, the illusion of depth, the illusion of one being able to touch the subject. Able to kiss the part of the neck where it meets the shoulder in a slope, where the shadows play fugues onto the hints of bone betrayed underneath folds of skin.

“Basil, I’m bored.”

Ignore her Ignore her Ignore her Ignore her Ignore her Ignore her Ignore her

“Basil, I love you.”

I start.

“I love you too, my Rosemary.”

The name slips through my lips as a tiny silver fish and I bite my lip in a vain attempt to take it back, to swallow the word back before it is tainted by the world.

I smile as I add lashes to her large, deep eyes.

I think I understand why I love her. To me, Doreen is Spring. She hearkens to me an awakening of beauty, and she will, I am sure, rescue me from the winter of my loneliness. For the first time I realize how bleak my existence before her was, how monotone and friendless. But here she is, my rescuer, my maiden, who brings with her flowers and the scent of rosemary. With her I am whole; with her, my solitude melts away like frost on a March morning, and the sun shines to the earth, wake up, it’s time to grow. 

I love you, Doreen Gray, and soon this portrait will show you my love. I will win you over with its beauty, and you will see my dedication with every brushstroke, every gleam of light and shadow upon your brow. You will see that I am capable of making a thing of beauty, that I am capable of being beautiful. And you will take my hand and lead me back to humanity, to the people and the places I have ignored for so long. Give me life, teach my how to rejoin the world of the living once again.

I do not have the strength to carry the painting home every day, which means the prying eyes of Ms. Wotton have been busy scouring it for evidence, for gossip and information. Unfortunately, she may have found my little secret.

“Can you stay for a bit?” she says to me as I leave for lunch. I have half a mind to bolt out of the classroom, but I contain myself and shrug in affirmation.

“What is it?”

Ms. Wotton slowly opens a drawer and fingers an unlit cigarette—against school policy, but she trusts me enough not to tell. “Don’t think I don’t know who comes to this room every day after school,” she says.

“So?”

“I just happened to talk with her in the halls the other day. She’s rather interested in joining your class.”

“Doreen can draw?”

“Pretty well, actually. She was in my class last year. Art didn’t fit into her schedule, but I convinced her to drop an elective in favor of it.” She winks at me. “I bet that makes you happy.”

Instead, the blood chills in my veins. When I am alone with Doreen, it’s like I am enraptured in an endless summer, but when someone else is there the illusion’s gone. I have avoided seeing Doreen with other people, because gnawing at the back of my head a secret grows like a poisonous seed, so alike to the feeling of love but so different in how it grips my heart and makes it heavy like a stone. Because the truth is, I don’t really know her. She has other friends, an entirely different life outside of me. She is the cosmos to me, but to her I am just a speck. Small, easily forgotten; a pitiable shy artist who has no friends. Who would ever love someone like me?

“Not really, actually,” I laugh nervously. “Isn’t it against school policy to directly intervene with students’ schedules?”

Ms. Wotton smiles, a catlike smile with pronounced canines. “You know how I feel about school policy. Anyways, this isn’t about the school or the administration, it’s about you. And that painting.”

“What about it?”

“I’ve watched you paint it. I’ve seen you looking at Doreen, and I know what you’re thinking.”

I clench my fists. “Why do you care so much, Ms. Wotton?”

“Oh, just curiosity and concern, that’s all. You know, this is your best work. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but I can’t deny how utterly gorgeous it is. There’s love in this work.”

“So what if there is?” I retort defensively.

“It’s dangerous when you get emotionally attached to a piece of work, Basil. You’re obviously in love with Doreen, but do you think she returns those feelings? And anyways, do you even know her? She tells me you two met a few weeks ago, and that you two don’t spend much time together outside of her posing for this painting. I don’t want to see you broken, Basil.”

I start to walk away. Ms. Wotton attempts to stop me, but I shake her off.

“Work on something else,” she calls out to me in the hallway. “If only for your sanity, you don’t want this to become both your magnum opus and your last work.”

My mind in turmoil, I defy Helen Wotton and work on the painting again after school. The seed is germinating, though, and I have to dispel the fear growing inside me.

“Why did you agree to pose for me?”

“Because being with you makes me feel alive.”

I’d rather have her as she poses for my painting, still as a statue as colors slowly give life to the doppelganger appearing on canvas. Then she’s close; then she’s mine and mine alone, my model, my Rosemary.

“Why did you agree to pose for me?”

“Honestly?” her eyelids flicker she blinks the light out of her eyes. “My mom picks me up late after school because of her job, and you’re the only non-boring person around here.”

I know I am nothing to her. I know this is just another footnote to her day, an ephemeral moment not worthy of another thought. I know but the delusion is so beautiful. When the painting is done, she’ll see. The painting, the beacon of my metamorphosis. My taste has been whetted for a deeper human contact, and the painting is the key to Doreen, who in turn is the key to entering the world.

“Why did you agree to pose for me?”

“…”

Silly me, paintings can’t talk.

Finishing the painting Love the girl Finish the painting Enter the world Finish the girl Love the painting

I’m not sure who or what I love more now. An idea? A person? An unfinished project?

Unfinished forever the next day, for it is gone from the art room.

Gone—I can’t believe she threw it away. I feel my heart cracking slowly, and I want to cry but can’t. There’s an emptiness now; I send Doreen away that day, a zombie devoid of any feeling.

It remains missing for a week, and I grow more and more listless and melancholy. I go home directly after school, no motivation, no purpose left. I think about spending time with Doreen, but it seems pointless without the painting between us. The painting is crucial to our relationship; the painting is our relationship. But slowly, as my body detoxes myself from the oil fumes I’ve been inhaling, my heart starts growing back, less heavy than before. 

I still have obligations. I have other projects to work on. But any time I try to set pencil to paper to create, my heart ties itself into knots and refuses to function, and my hand trembles with a ferocity, threatening to leave only a page full of lines without order or beauty. How can I draw anything if it isn’t her? Other art seems empty, devoid of the true beauty I have seen. Having tasted perfection, I find my appetite can no longer handle the mundane left over.

“Blank again,” Ms. Wotton remarks after a week of no inspiration. “You should try harder, Basil. The painting is not the end of your work.”

And then I knew, realization hitting me like an iron.

“You did it, didn’t you,” I hiss. “The painting. Where is it?”

“Basil, this is not healthy. I’m worried about you.”

“Rosemary. Where is it? The painting. Give it to me. Give it back.” I grip my pencil and raise it like a knife. A flash of terror passes through Ms. Wotton’s eyes, soon replaced by indignation. 

“You’re destroying yourself, Basil, and I’m trying to save you.”

“No. You’re not. Give it back.” I bring my fist down onto the table, breaking the pencil in half. I feel the splinters lodging themselves in my palm. “Give it back,” I repeat. “Give it back.”

Ms. Wotton doesn’t move, but watches me like a spectacle, an anomaly. I grab my bag and leave quickly, shocked at what I just did.

What an idiot I am. I don’t need a painting to love someone, and the strange obsession I have with her is not love. I love Doreen, not the painting. 

Maybe it’s silly to think that a painting will make someone love me. I’ve been so wrapped up in it, I haven’t gotten to know Doreen as a person at all. But then, a question nags at me: did I ever love Doreen as a person? Or has she always been a painting for me?

Clarity

The next day, the painting is back in the art room. Seeing it, I remember why I love Doreen so much. I smile despite myself, and walk down to cry in front of the painting, my masterpiece, my mistress. It’s back, and I am complete. I have the painting back, and now nothing will stand in the way of my love, my hope.

It’s the dead of winter, winter break, torturous torpor. I invite Doreen, but she has other plans. Instead, I stay inside, touch up the painting and finish the vase and flowers. The painting just needs some tiny touches now; then it will be finished, and then I will win her over with the force of a single work of perfection. It will be perfect when we are together. Just the two of us, a perfect picture of a human being and I. When I finish the painting, she will be stunned. She will love me as much as I love her, because the painting is a commemoration of my love to her. She loves me. She just needs to see the painting. And then she’ll take my hand and lead me to the outside world, she will save me from this collapsing star, rescue me from the event horizon which I have been cascading down without another thought. 

Funny, I never thought I’d be loved. When I think of the future, it’s always just me alone with my paintings. But now I’m not alone. I have her, and that’s all that matters. I have her, and I will never be lonely again.

It’s almost finished now. So close am I to showing it to her. So close, and the painting is as real as the world, Doreen’s beauty captured perfectly. Perfection doubled, the model and the painting.

It’s ready.

She sees it for the first time. I’m not sure what I wanted her reaction to be. To fly into my arms without a second thought, to promise me her love forever? Yes, and to take me to the world, to be my savior at last because with the painting I have proved myself worthy of being adored. 

“Oh,” is all she says.

I wait for a moment, for a comment, for something more than an interjection as a response to my work of love, my eternal dedication to her.

“And?” I prompt.

“It’s…me.”

I ask her to elaborate beyond stating the obvious.

“I don’t know, Basil. It’s too much like me. Like a photograph, but you’ve made me beautiful. And I don’t know what to say to it or to you, because, well, compared to it I don’t feel like I’m alive.”

“Say you love me,” I begin quietly, but slowly increase in volume until I am shouting, my voice resounding throughout the empty room. “Say that it’s the most beautiful thing you have ever seen because I know it’s the truth. Say that you’ll lead me back to humanity, say that you’ll be with me always. Because I love you Doreen and this painting is everything I have to offer to you. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you this before it is complete because this way you will know exactly how much I love you, how much I adore you and wish to be with you always. You are perfection, Doreen. You are spring to me, you are the sun bringing life to me again.”

“Basil,” she says slowly. “You’re talking to the painting.”

I turn and see her standing there in real life, the light bouncing off of her like it does with every other object. I see her alive but not alive. I look back at the painting.

“It’s so much like me, Basil. Too much. You’ve captured everything good about me, and now I can see every flaw on me right now.”

“You don’t like it,” I say numbly.

She shrugs sadly. “I can’t say I do.”

The portrait is finished and I feel empty. The portrait is finished…and she still doesn’t love me. I feel myself crumble, but then someone catches me. Rosemary. And all of a sudden Clarity returns to me, piercing my eyes like an arrow. I see her imperfections; I see how incomplete Doreen is. Everything is half-made and unfinished, with too little care for details. There stands my true love. There sits perfection wreathed in purple flowers.

“Basil?” Doreen tries to place her hand on my shoulder, but I wave her off. 

“You don’t have to come anymore.”

“Basil, I—“

“You are incomplete.”

I let the human go. I don’t need her anymore, not when I have a better version near me. We never speak with each other again. 

School returns, and the new term brings Doreen into my art class. I watch her laugh with others, hold up her compositions for scrutiny; I watch her rot as complacent as a turtle, watch her tarnished figure interact with the impurity that is the human condition. She’s not mine; she never was. But the painting in my room speaks otherwise; the painting in my room listens, it breathes. It will continue looking beautiful even as time begins to steal the roses from her cheeks and the stars from her eyes. As she grows old and falls to the calamity of age, the painting will remain pure and pristine, beautiful, perfect.

I stop going to art class. To make anything else except Rosemary seems sacrilegious. 

I am still alone, but not alone anymore.

I go home to her face waiting for me, waiting forever for something out of a window. “What are you looking for?” I ask her.

“Eternity,” she replies, and I laugh.

I have her, and I don’t need anything else.

Everything I need, I have in this painting.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a brainchild of mine. I thought I'd post it here because I'm rather proud of it, but ah well.


End file.
